Tag: arcane

Working towards something
Pushing myself to the edge
The brink of everything that’s real
The point at which I am dead
Keeps digging, the mind wants more
Keep reliving, the memories I deserve
Stains on broken glass
Visions left without words
Bring to life everything that I fear
Bring the innocent to their knees
Beg for forgiveness though no reason why
I belong to everything, now that is a lie
Working the words into something
Something ugly, the way that I feel
I’m sure by now you can tell
I don’t care about you and how you feel

With Our Ideas On Fire

Broken visions of a better day
Longing fears of something real
A daily grind with a cross to bare
I think I know what it means
I think I’d be wrong
Following in footsteps made of glass
Drowned with air made of poison
A daily grind with our knives on display
I think I know what it means
I think in some way I’d be wrong
Forgiving misgivings yet to happen
Sympathetic to reasons already written
A daily grind with a knotted noose
To be you, to be me
I think I’d be wrong
In assuming I’d have any idea at all

This story started a long time ago before now and before your greedy fucking eyes ever got a hold of it. Like the great tumbling ball of shit that is my life it is all the same ball of shit. People will lie, change the truth, anything to making a fucking dollar so, here is the truth so you too can change it later to fit into your own tale of how fucked up I really am. Are you listening to what I am saying? Are you paying attention? Good, I just want to say one thing to you before we start. I am legend and you’re just jealous. Fuck off. Oh and I didn’t bother thinking any of this over so deal with it. God you are such an asshole.

It all start, this all started when I fell down the stairs. I think it was maybe five years ago, but I can’t really be held accountable for minute details. We have a lot to cover so a detailed timeline is really just a waste of time so stick with me and put your fucking hand down. Time isn’t everything people. Back to my God damn story, I fell down the stairs and of course it wasn’t a simple fall down the fucking stairs. I couldn’t just break my arm or a fucking leg, no I had to break both of my useless good for nothing shitty appendages, an arm, and worse of all my fat ass fell so quickly and with all the laws of gravity not on my fucking side I had to crash through the door at the bottom of the stairs. The same damn door my wife told me to change out years ago. The same fucking door she continues to bitch about despite the fact that it’s long since been replaced. Well that shitty door had to break my fall and shatter into a million pieces, all except one piece mind you. That one was nice enough to stay fucking put. That one piece stayed real fucking strong as it went through my back bringing my wild ride to a quick stop. Ever have to spit blood out of your mouth to stop from drowning in it? Well that’s too damn bad. Tastes like shit, actually it tastes like I had a wild idea to drag my tongue across a rusty pipe just for the fuck of it. The damage was done from that point on I was fucked, but of course I had to push my luck. Hold on this is a great fucking song. “You’re so scared and so alone.” I had to keep going on and keep on living because God knows that’s what I wanted at that fucking second with the EMT’s standing over debating what would be the best way to move me. My spine was damaged this was true. IT is also true that if my spine wasn’t damaged I might have died from the pure shock of having both of my legs broken in multiple places. Couldn’t feel the fuckers. I could barely feel anything. My spine was damaged but for some God damn reason my spine wasn’t severed. For some God damn forsaken reason there was still hope for me yet. There was a special surgery the doctors said that I might be able to have that could reverse the damage and give me one more chance to land the dismount. Too bad it cost an arm and a leg, and I was fresh out of legs. This magical surgery was all thanks to those demigods up on the hill. You know those ones that want to advance stem cell research so they can help turn some unwanted child into a new limb or body part for some sad sack of shit solider no one gave a fuck about in the first place. Fuck did I miss that up? Fuck it, fix it later. What I am saying is that congress recently passed a bill or a law or whatever that allowed the use of stem cells for those who could afford it. All I needed was half a million dollar or find someone to pay for it. So I did what anyone in my financial standing would do. I went to the bank and pulled five hundred thousand dollars out of my personal just encase life fucked you in the ass account. All in ones of course and made it rain all over his office like he was Candy from Sweet Charles Strip Club and BBQ lucky day. So began my next chapter in life strapped into a wheel chair shitting on myself. The fun chapter really. Half price dances is nothing to shake a stick at. Funny how the health bill fell flat on its fucking face, but stem cell use got the ok. Small victory for ignorance and one giant leap for the future. Yeah I’m that bitter.

Thanks to the wheel chair I know found my fat ass sitting in I lost my job. It is a little hard to lift fifty pound boxes of produce from the safety and comfort of a chair with wheels. I needed to find a new career path, a new way so to speak not that my last one was really anything worth losing to begin with, but there comes a time in a man’s life, maybe a woman’s too though I was beginning to understand what life meant without a penis, that he has to make a decision. Sometimes though that decision isn’t made by one’s own hand. It was at this time that I had to look deep within myself to figure out what it was that I wanted to do with my new found sense of existence. I knew I needed money so I could shut my wife up about the fucking surgery. I knew I didn’t want to go to work at any place with human beings. I knew a lot of things I didn’t want to do basically, but what I found in my hours of cheap whiskey and a crotch full of Candy was the inspiration to write. Something I hadn’t done since I dropped out of college all those years ago. It wasn’t like I was hiding some deep unearned skill deep within myself, but who has the fucking time when they are knee deep in the bullshit called life? Whatever, thanks to my horrible accident I was able to find my voice once again. All good artist must suffer and I had plenty of it thanks to my impending position. So that is what I did day in and day out I wrote. Drank a little bit too much and then wrote some more. Paid Candy to play with my flaccid dick and I wrote some more. Every second of every day I used putting pen to paper, paper into computer, and back and forth until I had something, until I had a story worth writing about. My story, well a version of my story I’m sure you have all read my book by now If I Could Only Get It Up. No? Then why the fuck are you here right now. Go buy a fucking copy, pop your pants off, and come back to me when you have finished. Why the fuck are you even reading this? Because you like reading stories about human suffering? You’re a fucking selfish prick aren’t you? Good than you and I have something in common at least on a surface co-hatred and contempt for anyone that isn’t us. Though I have to say it is a lot like preaching to the stupid. Still with me? Fan-fucking-tastic let’s move on. It took two years of fighting, clawing and scratching, sucking and fucking to get that piece of shit book printed and pressed and in the hands of you dick lickers, and it would take another two before I could even make enough money to put a down payment on the surgery. Yeah they have those. I was as surprised as you to say the least, but it makes sense if you can walk again you can make money. Oh yeah the health industry will suck the life right out of you just like any other. The way it is when everything is for profit. Honestly though if you are figuring that out right now as I tell you please don’t forget to visit my website where you can buy some more bullshit to complete your empty life.

Even after all the record breaking sales of my book by a first time writer. America really loves a tragedy. Hey kids want to get famous saw your legs off and see what happens. Okay don’t do that find your own God damn way to milk the tit that is the American conscious. Run for president or something the point is that I still didn’t have enough money to pay for my operation out right, but I did have enough credit with the publishing company to barter my soul for the money I still needed. They were just thrilled to hand over several hundred thousand dollars to me so I could fucking walk again because apparently it is really expensive to send a cripple on a book tour. Heartless fucking ass clowns that they are. Oh and plus America likes a redemption story so, they had me sign a paper that said they could release my next three books. Lucky me. I know what you are thinking holy shit he gets to write three more books. He is so blessed, yeah well fuck you because now I had to produce three more fucking books without a single fucking idea. Do you know what kind of pressure that has on a fragile mind? Yeah you don’t, what it is like is telling the bank you can pay them back the whole loan in than five years without a fucking job. Good luck, hope everything works out for you because it’s not. So here I am recovering from my operation and trying to come up with something to get those fucking heathens off my back. They are blood thirsty, it may not seem that way, but they really are some blood thirsty no talent fucking cunts. They’re like vampires in the night. Constantly calling, “How’s the book going? How’s this going? Are you feeling better?” Assholes, they can’t even come up with their own God damn idea so, they suck the ideas out of writers as quickly as they can, and when they are done with us we are just cast aside like a dry husk of what was once a human. Vampires of ideas are what this whole industry is like. It torments me every second of every day and with all this stress and rehab my head is like a tornado of shit smashing from one side of my skull to the other. My head feels like a pinball machine that has been well used. A bit dated of a reference but needless to say the stress is getting to me at this point. But I’m not even sure if it is the stress of everything lately or the God damn operation. I’m on a strict regimen of headache medicine, pain killers, and a great amount of alcohol but I still can’t get rid of this pain in my head. The only thing that I have found that actually gets rid of the pain in my head is not really accepted by society as a whole. Maybe a few societies out there but not many. I’m getting a head of myself hold on let me get back on track.

Okay so I told you ass stains about my problem with the books I have to write for the vampires that’s the climax. So all we really need is some falling action to really get your panties soaking wet. I bet you wear lacy ones that you think are so sexy as they stretch around your curves, but you never show anyone because you are a highly regarded person in your community and if you’re a lady I’m confused as to why you’d bother wearing nay at all. If my mind wasn’t a blender on puree I’d probably have this story written out already and you could move on to more pressing matters of life. Months went by as I tried to decide what to write next. I had already used up my asshole card so I couldn’t write another book about telling the world to fuck off or a book literally about assholes. I had no ideas and the longer that I had no ideas the worse the pain in my head got. It got so bad I had to start taking more drugs and mix in other ones to try and numb the pain for a little. This time period should have been the best time of my life and it was quickly growing worse and worse. I could walk again, I had an extremely successful first novel, and yet I was too busy trying to drown out my pain. I started to take walks around this time mostly to get away from the bitching at home and because for the first time in a long time I could. It was during one of these walks that something extraordinary happened. I got the pain to finally go away. Not permanently but long enough so I could think. It wasn’t runners high or something stupid like that it was survivors high. Is that even thing? I don’t know, but while I was walking one night down in the shitty part of town some asshole came up to me waving a gun in my face. Telling me to give him all my money or he would waste me right there like I was a piece of trash someone didn’t want anymore. I don’t know if it was the third of bourbon I had in me or the fact that I was only carrying enough cash to get me more, but something rose up in me. A sense of calm I had never experienced before. I calmly looked the young man in the eyes and I told him to stop waving that gun in my face before I take it way and shove it up his ass. He wasn’t too thrilled by that scenario and as he placed the cold barrel right up against my forehead and demanded his demands all over again I thought maybe I wouldn’t either. I waited for the loud bang to echo through my skull as I somehow survived the odds for the second fucking time.

I’m just fucking with you. Why the fuck would I be walking around the shitty part of town like some commoner? Seriously though I’ve butchered like six women in the last year. It was actually easier than you might think and it really did make the headaches go away, but they only go away for a little while. I have found that the only way to make my headaches go away long enough is to skin a woman alive and listen to her scream. Slowly of course because there is something about hearing their screams of pain as I torment them piece by piece that just melts my own pain away like butter on a hot knife. Oh stop your, “That’s so wrong fucking judgements,” you’re passing through your head fucked up head right now. Who the fuck are you to even judge me in the first place? You bought the fucking book about how I committed each crime in full detail. I mean this is only the fucking forward, the preface of a book called How I Committed Each Crime and You Paid Me to Do It. I know, I know it is a really long fucking title, but the vampires didn’t really get my original title, Knife in your Vagina. I thought it was catchy, but nope you the readers just get a slap in the face. They also didn’t get the concept of each page being made from human skin or at the very least the cover. Gave them a prototype and everything. You didn’t think that I would let anything go to waste did you? Oh well go ahead and get on with it. Go ahead and read the rest of the God damn book. Long story short the critics will just laugh it off as a fictional tale of my deeply deprived mind raised on junk food and twisted tales of horror and rape, but know this dear reader I am really something sinister.

Looking for something different?… Drinking Bleach is my first collection of short stories from my earlier days…. It is a mixed genre book filled with short stories, poems, micro stories, and more…. From the early days of Chewing On Glass to the first story I ever wrote… This book covers a lot of ground… As always available on Kindle. Don’t have a Kindle? That’s okay. Enjoy thousands of books right from your desktop, smart phone, or tablet with the Kindle app… Now Available in Paper back…

My mind is going a mile a minute
A minute a mile and I have to remember
This is only a symptom
Of something that I have created
I wish I could forget or maybe remember
Not everything has to have a reason
Heavy-handed and light-headed
I miss the days where none of this mattered
Picking my words wisely, won’t know
Which ones will be my last
Though I kind of figured
The way things are, the way they are going
It might be sooner than expected

Thoughts in My Head

When the world ends
There won’t be anything left to say we were here
But I’m sure somehow, some way
I’ll be staring at your face for all eternity
Your demon-like eyes and your poisonous thighs
Will all, but warm me by the fire
So cold I will still be, that none of this
Will ever seem like it truly exists
Trapped in a wake
Trapped in an illusion
It doesn’t need a name but
Most people call it hell
I can feel your newly developed spines
Piercing the skin, digging deeper
Your cold dead fingers latch onto my soul
I know now that you will never let go
I told myself it was okay at first
But now I wish I could cut and run
Trapped in my mind
Trapped in my head
Most people call it a nightmare
I’m left calling it home

I can’t stand being here any longer. I can’t stand the control you think you have over me because you are in “charge.” Every day spent here is a waste of my time. I just want to scream in his face, but “insubordination leads to termination” or whatever the stupid ass saying is at this shit hole. The asshole in question is a ponytail wearing prick who thinks he has some form of hold over me because he is the lead. A worthless fucking title that basically means he has failed harder than me. Of course, I want the title too. If you are going to fail at least burn that mother fucker into the ground go for management. All he has over me is a need to not want to be homeless or in jail. They don’t tell you that when you are young. Follow your dreams, follow this, but don’t worry about the reality that is life. “It’s to work or it’s to jail.” All Hail by The Devil Makes Three. (That’s a real song. Check it out sometime.)

We choke down these broken ideas of a future that can’t be for everyone. If everyone got to do what they wanted why would we have war? If all it took was hard work why would anyone ever give up? Lies, jokes splashed into our young faces in hopes to grow a few flowers out of the bull shit. Reality is that most of us will only get buried in the ground. Fighting for sunlight and hoping for a chance at something. A root deeply rooted into the ground. All I know is that he is lucky.

Lucky I still drink the water or his ponytail wearing ass would be on the floor. Three hits is all it would take. One hit to the face, another for his ponytail to whip around, and him hitting the floor. If only I had enough venom to stand up to his abuse. I’d do it and laugh my ass off out of the building. Strip my clothes off and run around carrying a lighter screaming, “I am the one true God. The fire inside us all.” Turn this assault into a real show of insanity. The perception of which all of this really is. Here I am a grown man about to ask if I can go to the restroom like a fucking child. Whoever came before him must have been some twisted fuck or maybe his parents did a number on him. Either way, I don’t care if he was beaten daily as a child or made to do every horrible thing at this fucking place. At some point, you’ve got to make a stand and say enough is an enough. I’m not them and they are not me.

“Excuse me, Mr. Goodwin.” He stops stocking for a moment. “Yes,” he says in his smug fucking tone. “May I use the restroom?” I ask as calmly as a man burning alive from the inside can. “It will count as one of your breaks.” I only get two of these fucking things I think. “If you really want to waste one of your breaks on using the restroom then, by all means, go ahead.” I want to waste one of them mopping up his blood, a thought I keep to myself. The warmth of my piss takes a hold of my shorts before he can open his dumb fucking mouth again. I look him dead in the eyes, “No, I don’t think that will be necessary.” He glances at my urine-soaked crotch. He wants a child than a child he shall get. “Did you just piss yourself?” I look down at my crotch, “Looks like it.” His face is full of disgust. I don’t laugh and I don’t smile before turning away. Going back to work all I can think is I’m just grateful I didn’t have to shit.

Blood drips from the walls, “Awaken.” Blood drips from the walls as shadows dance above me. They take the form of hooded nightmares, “Awaken.” They chant over and over for no reason at all until I obey. Shaking I reach for the glass on the nightstand. Straight whiskey and straight down. The whiskey makes me what to puke, even after all this time, to the point that I don’t know if I have or it is only the burn of the liquor. I light a cigarette as I sit up in bed. I can still hear their words just as I did as a child. “Awaken,” they chant but why? Why always the same nightmare from my past. The darkness of the room subsides as I put out the half-finished cigarette. I want to sleep but I want to reach for the light just as much. A darkness resides in me. A darkness I am no closer to understanding even in adulthood. I begin to drift asleep once again.

The blood drips down the walls of the hall. I hesitate before continuing the cold sticky feel with every step. A low light at the end of the hall grows as I get closer. The blood drips into pools as my eyes focus on the light. I enter the room at the end of the hall. Lite with candles I can see the bodies lying in the corners of the room, but I can’t make out their faces. Living or dead I do not know. I can feel my pajamas becoming saturated with blood as I stand there in horror. Panicked I drop to the floor. The figures rise and come towards me as I scream. “Awaken,” they chant as a deep rhythm comes from beyond them. I scream louder and louder until I awake to the sound of my neighbor pounding on the wall. “Awake the fuck up you freak,” he shouts. My pissed soaked pants clinging to my legs. “Fuck you,” I shout back. “Fuck you,” I whisper under my breath.

My therapist says that I should keep a sleep journal. Write down my thoughts and dreams. How I feel. Scared I feel scared and confused. The images don’t leave my mind I tell her every time. A sleep journal is pointless, but all she says is that it will help. Help what? Relive the same nightmare over and over again. My brain hurts from the hangover. My brain hurts from all the thinking. I want to drain my skull and forget it all. Hit start over and watch it drift away. Can’t sleep without the drink. The drink is what got me in trouble. A cycle of bull shit. I wish I knew where this started. Wish I could remember so I could forget. The day goes on but it is the night that I fear.

Work is hard to come by for a drunk. Another lost job doesn’t mean much when you live in a shit hole, to begin with. I trade my food stamps for cash. Be easier if they only feed my addiction and not my stomach. I have another interview for some shitty job later today. The interview is easy. It is easy to get the job, but keeping one on no sleep and a deep hangover is the hard part. Even worse when the days bleed together as they have lately. Is today the interview? Or is it tomorrow? Taking another drink. “What does it matter anymore?” I ask no one in particular. A radiant silence feels the room. One more couldn’t hurt.

“Awaken for we are here. Awaken,” the voices chant. A wetness hits my head. Drip after drip, “You must awaken. The demon calls for a sacrifice. Awaken child for it is time.” I awaken as a drop of liquid smacks the center of my forehead. I wipe it clean and even the moonlight that lights my room I can tell that it is blood. Scared I scramble to sit up in my bed. Another drop smacks the top of my head. I look up at the ceiling and scream as I fall out of bed. A large dark spot rests over my bed. I begin to weep as I sit on the floor. What has been done? “Why are you so weak?” A voice from the corner asks. I can see a shadowy figure but can’t make out the features in the dark. “We had so much hope for you. You only failed us in the end,” the figure continues. I want to reach for the light but I am too scared. “Maybe it is because you were the last of them. Could that be why you are so weak? Could that be why you never fulfilled your purpose? Your brothers were no better. Dying in wars or failing after a few murders, but at least they embraced what they were,” the figure pauses. “What,” I finally bring myself to say. The figure ignores what I said, “You seek help and use alcohol like a crutch. So weak you have become. Could it because you are my son? Were we not hard enough on you as we were the others? I question our actions every day. Did we do the right things? Too much faith in one’s actions leads them to failure.” I wipe the tears from my face and only find more blood, “What happened to my neighbors upstairs?” “Don’t you know that after all this time you have awaken?” The figure asks. The scream of a little voice pierces the night air. “It would appear that you have missed one,” the voice states before laughing. “My child the failure.” “I am not your child,” I shout back. “Are you not? Rise and finish what you have started,” the figure shouts back. The screams upstairs have turned to loud sobbing. Without thought I stand up. I try to fight my actions as I grab the bloody knife off the nightstand and leave the room. Slowly ascending the stairs the knife drags against the wall leaving a trail to where I am going. The knife follows a similar path as before. Bloody footprints descends the worn out stairs. My footprints retrace my previous steps. How can I not remember this from before? Entering the apartment I look down the long hallway at the light at the end. A shadow dances from within the room as I continue my march along the path. Bodies line the sides of the wall execution style. A child wanders around the room crying unable to console herself, unable to understand what has happened. Unable to see the hooded monsters that surround her. From behind me I hear the figure say, “Finish what you have started.”

“I didn’t start this,” I tell the voice. “Of course you did,” the figure laughs. “Who else could have done something like this?” The figure says in its cryptic voice. The unaware child is now aware of me. She walks to me, eyes red from the rubbing, from the tears. She stands before me scared, but unsure. “You can’t fight what you are destined to do. Fate has a place whether you believe or not. Best to do what needs to be done,”the figure’s voice is somber but unapologetic. My body and soul on rails does what I tell it to not. I grab the child by the neck and push her to the ground. Her little body fights it but she contains no equal strength to my own. She hits the hardwood floor with a thud. Terror washes over her face. Even she can sense the danger she is in. I cut the child’s eyes out of her skull. I weep for my sins. As I listen to her screams it becomes so clear that everything has led up to this. I slit her throat and watch as her little heart push the blood out of her throat until there is no more strength. Flashes of the past enter my mind. Face after face, I realize the monster I have become, the monster I have always been. “In the darkness child is when we learn what we truly are. In the darkness is when our true self awakens,” the cryptic voice lingers in my mind. “Awaken.”

Awaken will be featured in my forthcoming book Running Into Traffic… When that will come out who knows, but hopefully this year… It will be my second short story collection… It will cover a wide variety of topics… Similar to my last one, but with less emphasis on serial killers this time around… Horror in general really…. well it depends on your definition of horror… If I haven’t sold you on the book yet it ain’t getting any better… But I am excited about it… I think it contains some of my best work so far… and it also means that this other story that has been in my head for years will finally be done… told you…

Look for Running Into Traffic at a Kindle store near you… at some point….

Oh… If anyone wants to collaborate on a cover… I don’t have one set in stone so let me know… or if you have a cool idea for a cover… I was thinking of continuing using my paints for covers (See A Lie)… but I was told they don’t really convey a story or incite a riot… Whatever the fuck that means…

Part 1 posted yesterday… Might want to read that first… I love the rebel in you…

Slowly the light begins to cut through the darkness and immerse the crowd in its glow. The light rises high above the back of the stage before flickering for a moment. The light goes completely out once again as the prerecorded music begins to play. In the absences of light the fans begin to chant, “Suicide, suicide, it’s time to die.” The chant becomes hypnotic repeated over and over again. Lost in a daze of the darkness and the sound time became slower. Out of nowhere, the light behind the stage comes back at full capacity to reveal itself as a giant LED inverted cross. In the darkness, the crew had raised a thin curtain in front of the stage. The band’s shadows appear on the curtain bathed in red. The fans stop chanting and begin cheering. Clive rips into the opening riff for “God’s on a Holiday.” His shadow dancing across the curtain and the black hole begins to circle the concert floor. The black hole only grows as the song continues on. I don’t know if everyone or anyone will make it out alive, and it is at this moment that I begin to question if anyone is supposed to. As the first of many breakdowns begins the curtain drops revealing the band to the crowd. All the members have joined in at this point creating a symphony of sound and carnage. From the side of the stage, I can see the band quite clearly. The band is out for blood and the fans are more than willing to give them every last drop within them. I have never seen a band like this and I wonder if I ever will again. The moments of that night flashback and forth in my mind like an LSD trip. Some days I wonder if I am there at this moment or here in the now. The energy of the show that night took a hold of me and everyone in that building and none of it was lost as the band went into their next song, “The Soul Needs It.” Despite it not being a hit song the song gets more energy from the crowd and the pit than the last one. Clive changed the solo to this song to a more complicated one than the one recorded on tape years ago. At the time though I didn’t know that. At that moment it was all so new to me. Mike wasn’t kidding when he said they play heavier live. Though to be honest I don’t know if even modern recording could capture the energy the band puts out live. Mike’s drums rumble with the power and rage of thunder. As he strikes each hit after hit across his kit it is as though the earth around you is coming apart. Clive and Beatrix’s guitars crash like lightning directly into your body cementing you in place. But it is Korbin with his words that truly take you somewhere else. He sings as though he is God himself delivering a message. Everything works so beautifully that one’s mind gets lost in it all and yet you understand everything that is happening around you. I remember the crowd as they tore each other apart. Bloody knuckle after bloody knuckle smashing into each other’s faces. The cries and screams of the crowd begging for the pain to stop yet they continued as though nothing was wrong. I remember the faces of the women who stripped as they walked to the center of the black hole. The only calm place on the floor that night. I watched and I understood as they laid on the floor covering themselves head to toe in blood. Men emerged from the crowd and the women maybe five or six of them began stripping the men before getting down on all fours to face the band. Their faces dripping with blood and sin as the men fucked them from behind. Even through all the noise that night I swear that I could hear their laughter and their cries of pleasure. Transfixed I barely noticed that the music had stopped. Korbin’s voice sounds like an angel with bent wings as he greets the crowd, “Thank you all for coming out tonight. Many people fear this day, but as I stand here to bare witness there is no reason to fear the devil. Who’s ready to bleed for their maker?” The crowd erupts as the heaviest version of “Don’t Fear the Devil” begins to play. The lyrics are fit for a day that only comes once every thousand years. A song about the evils of the world, a song about the truth, and a reason we should all rejoice on this day.

The men and women in the center of the black hole switch out with other men and women from the crowd. Their naked bloody bodies gleaming in the red glow from the cross. The band plays on with the songs “Bone Collectors of West Memphis” and “Cruel Intentions and a Kind Soul” before thrashing into their number one single, “As We Vanish.” Through the red hue of the lights, I see what could only be described as the figure from early in the evening. Only now there are more of them beginning to surround the band. They stand in a wall like formation and watch on as Clive switches guitars during the extended drum and bass solo. I hear Korbin lead into the second chorus of the song as Clive begins the riff I stare off into the crowd. The amount of bloody naked bodies has tripled and more couples have made it to the center of the black hole. Korbin’s voice echoes as he sings, “I will die mother fucker, I will die and vanish in time.” As I turn my head back to the band I see them all drop to the ground. What seems to be very fake suddenly becomes very real when Mike falls off the drum risers hitting the ground with such force I can hear it through the feedback of Clive’s guitar. Beatrix’s body lies on top of her bass convulsing as blood and foam comes out of her mouth. Korbin lays flat on his back shaking as the foam is spewing out of his mouth and on to the floor around him. His mic has rolled across the stage and stopped next to Clive who is lying on his side hunched over his guitar not moving. The once loud crowd becomes silent as the house lights come one. The figures that once surrounded the band have disappeared in the light. The crowd begins to scream, to cry, and to lose their minds. Those covered in blood on their naked bodies scream the loudest. Those clothed and not chosen try to help the others in the chaos. Everyone in the room becomes confused for one reason or another. Those on the floor begin to cry as everything comes crashing down. They finally see the band and the medical staff surrounding them. Many of the fans begin to fall to the floor filled with emotions. I watched as one of the naked women from the center go into the fetal position and begin to rock back and forth. A strange image that is suddenly broken when the crowd’s confusion turns to anger. Those still left standing rush the stage as those stationed in front of the stage fight for their lives extra protection moves in. Security holds back grown men and teenaged kids alike as no one still knows what is truly happening or why. The back of the stage is just as hectic as the crowd. Friends and family running around trying to find out anything they can about their loved ones, but no one knows what is going on back here either. Hidden behind all this panic and chaos though is this underwhelming feeling that nothing matters anymore. Nothing means anything anymore. I watched for what seemed like hours before finally just turning around and leaving. I don’t remember getting home, but I remember the blood. I don’t remember what I have been doing the last few months, but I remember the pain.

It has been almost a year since that night. I’ve had a year to process the twenty thousand stories of that evening. Mine included and yet I still don’t understand. No one really does, but those there and those not there. Those that were fans of the band feel the emptiness every day. We listen to the records but somehow it is not the same. If only I had seen them more when they were here. If only I could have seen them again. An investigation into what happened that night yield nothing, but journals detailing ramblings about the devil and the second coming. Many fans of the band didn’t wait for the reports and began making decisions that seem ill-fitting at the time. The initial suicides spurred a wave of suicides throughout the country and the world. Presser was put on the F.B.I to look further into the case. But as the days grew on the F.B.I. couldn’t find any conclusion then they killed themselves to become more famous. A second wave grew out of this conclusion. A wave with one question on their lips, why? Eventually excerpts from their journals found on the tour bus and their shared home in Pittsburgh began to explain some of the question. Beatrix’s journal revealed the reason they chose Los Angles, “A town of fake people pretending they’re alive, but really they are as dead as the rest of us. Los Angeles will be the perfect place to make it permanent.” Stranger things lie ahead though as time went on. Many of the women in the black hole that night became pregnant. Nearly every one of the “Virgin Babies,” as they became to be known, were carried to term. In all of those women that participated that evening six of them produced a child. This in itself is not strange as the world is built on this idea, but what is mysterious is the way that each of their mothers died shortly after. None of whom died to complication of pregnancy, but by their own hand joining those before them that had done much of the same. Not a single one of them left the world with a note or a reason. By all accounts despite the way their children came into this world most were overjoyed. A dark sisterhood they each were having one of the “Virgin Babies,” and yet they each killed themselves. Their offspring were however spared in a sense as their whereabouts are unknown at this time. Only time will tell what will happen to the “Virgin Babies,” or even how much of their own story they will know. As each wave of suicide grew larger so did the mystic of joining those that had committed to the act already. Whole families torn apart by a selfless act. The government began to fear the worst. Feared what they could not understand. What none of us could understand. They asked the media to refrain from any mentioning of the band or suicide in hopes that the, “less we know the better.” Some of the media fought it at first, but in the end most complied in fear of being to blame for the continued deaths.

Many questions were still left unanswered even after a year. No one still knows why this happened even if it was for nothing more than fame they already had it. Most of the information was spread across the four member’s journals, but no one was able to paint a full picture out of any of it. The little that is known, the speculations have only made their legend grow into the biggest mystery in modern time like the assassination of JFK or the collapsing of the twin towers no one will ever really understand what truly took place the night the Virgin Suicides died.

That night opened up my eyes, my soul even. Something changed in me that night. I don’t know if it was the sight of the black figures or the spectacle that was that night or the aftermath that followed. I no longer see this world as a wonderful place full of beauty and wonder. Something about those four losing their lives right before my eyes for no explainable reason. It leaves me feeling not only cheated but also empty and longing for something I can not explain. That night showed me how dirty and filthy this world truly is. We are all filled with rage and hatred and guilt not just for life, but each other. I can’t take any more of this wicked place. My head can’t take any more speculation or questions. Why did they collect the blood? Why did they surround them just before? Why, why, why? What happens from now until the end of the earth doesn’t matter. Nothing anyone ever does will truly matter. Don’t judge me. Judge yourself. This planet is nothing more than a dumping ground for shit and decay. The world is ugly and you are not alone in thinking that it is. I tried I really did but I can still see them.

Jonathan Murdock

The end of the Last Great Band… I actually cut a lot of the story to make it fit into a two-day format… Wasn’t sure anybody would want to read a three-day story or close to three thousand words in one go for two straight days… Well on the internet… I would hope someone would want to read the whole story… In a book form… So I did trim the fat so to speak…

The amphitheater was alive with the sound of music. The fans were more than pumped and ready to go for the first band of the evening. The up and coming band Plath opened the concert nicely, driving the 15,000 plus fans to start a miniature black hole of a mosh pit. Person after person backstage commented it takes balls to be in there. “You will come out a bloody and bruised mess,” Vicki West of Plath predicted before the show, and she was more than right. The pit was quite large for an opening band, but there were still a lot of fans waiting for the Virgin Suicides to come on the stage before they joined in on the black hole. Most if not all of these fans waiting on the sides wear shirts that signify they are only here for one thing. These hardcore fans are known as the Suicide Squad. The SS wait patiently for the Virgin Suicides to come on watching over the others as though they are an elite military guard. “They sit there waiting because once we come on heads are going to roll. They know this so they save their energy for when they are going to need it. Everyone calls the pit a black hole, but I like to call it the red ring of carnage and mayhem. The last place I would ever want to be is in there with them,” Beatrix of the Virgin Suicides told me. Many of these fans travel from all over the country and even the world. Some are even known to follow the band for whole tours no matter how long or how far. Today is unique in that today is all about them. Tickets for this show were limited to “true” fans only. A selection process that not even the press was allowed access to. To say this isn’t a show for the fans would be a lie. Just looking around one can understand just how much these fans love the band. One fan, in particular, Matt “Skin” Larson, traveled all the way from Chicago to see the band tonight. I asked him before the show why he would travel so far to see one band? “This is the greatest band to ever walk the face of the earth. They are not only the voice of our generation but of life itself.” Strong words from a super fan all of twenty-one years old. However, he was not alone in his thoughts about the band. Many fans from the age of eighteen to even forty-five years old said much of the same. This band runs deep in the hearts of many of these fans. The concert seems more and more like a gathering than a show the longer I stand back and watch.

Despite the venue being packed with Virgin Suicides fans they still warmed up nicely to Plath that night. Plath finished their set with their hit song “Into the Wild.” After a short instrument switch, the band Red Blood Stain Parade amped up the carnage even further. I watched as the pit began to grow to an unruly size. More dangerous and larger the pit moved to a soundtrack provided by a band of misfits from all over the United States. RBSP may be from all over, but they met here in Los Angeles almost a decade ago. They are currently touring in support of their fourth album. Though they have been around for a while now they hadn’t started to make much of an impact on the music scene. That was until they took a little know band as an opening act four years ago. That band was the Virgin Suicides, and by the end of their first tour, they went from being openers to being co-headliners. Since then RBSP has toured a lot with the Virgin Suicides forming a friendship out of a situation most people wouldn’t have. The lead singer of RBSP Ari Stain spoke with me about that friendship.

Skin and Bones: How was it to watch the opening band go from opening to closing on that first tour?

Ari Stain: Strange very, very strange. Unheard of, but really you would have had to see the reaction to the crowd on the first five or six shows to truly understand. I’ve never seen anything like it. Even when we go out on tour with other bands there is still never anything like it. Our band has great fans and I love them, but their fans are die hard, to say the least. The strangest thing about VS is that they are able to turn a crowd in as little as two songs. I know when it first started happening I was pissed, but who wouldn’t be? Luckily though the members of the band are just too cool of human beings to really be pissed at.

Skin and Bones: The band says that Red Blood Stain Parade is a huge influence on them as a band. How do you feel about that?

Ari Stain: They say that all the time. (Smile) But I think in actuality they influence us way more. Every band out there is trying to capture lightning in a bottle, but for them, it is as the lighting goes directly to them. The band is so amazing and it has been more than a blessing to be able to spend these past few years touring together. They can say what they want and I don’t doubt for a second that they aren’t being honest, but honestly, we are just trying to ride the lightning with them.

Due to the amount of touring these two bands have done together many members of the Suicide Squad have joined the pit than for Plath. RBSP packed many of their hits into their forty-five minute set including “Death is Being On the Radio,” “A Cross,” and their major hit “Laptop Diaries.” Nearly every voice in the venue provided the backing vocals for their major hit. It was an impressive thing to hear that night in the amphitheater. It wasn’t until the intermission between RBSP and the Virgin Suicides though that I noticed how much blood was on the floor. It was as though a war was taking place right in front of the stage. Despite the carnage, I felt a slight jealous that I too was not down there with them. Especially now that the Suicides were coming on stage next.

Security rushed in with towels and rubber gloves to clean up as much blood as possible before the Virgin Suicides came on. With the lights on I could see the fans with bloody noses, swollen eyes, and one fan in a white t-shirt was covered in so much blood he looked as if he was a victim of a murder scene. After he took his shirt off and threw it on the floor I realized he was fine other than what I am guessing was a broken nose. His shirt was picked up by a figure dressed completely in black with no markings. If it wasn’t for the lights I’m not sure I would have even noticed the figure. To this day I’m not even sure what I saw. The figure walked back to the side of the stage and took all the towels from security. Clive Godard told me they pass out free waters to the fans for safety reasons more than anything. He also recalled times that this act of generosity has backfired in the form of half-drunken bottles to the face. “I don’t get why they do it, but it’s really nothing more than a death wish. One concert I saw a bottle thrower get their ass beaten by the Squad so bad that we had to stop the show to get him out of there. Since then there has been a whole hell of a lot fewer bottles being thrown, but there’s always one or two assholes in the crowd,” he smiled as though that this was normal. This particular incident turned out to be less than normal for any band. The bottle thrower was never identified nor was he ever seen again. A myth or a legend has grown to an epic level. Mysterious such as the lost bottle thrower, the burning down of multiple hotel rooms, and rumors human sacrifice have followed the band since the early days. This assignment was offered to many other writers, but no one was brave enough to take it. I’m beginning to understand what they mean. There are quite a few ambulances on hand for the concert. Korbin told me, “The fans can get a little crazy. We like them to be as safe as possible, but for some the music can make them go rather insane. Most people not looking to have their face rearranged hang out in the back. Beatrix calls them the Flower Children as a joke, but it has caught on and now they are a subgroup of the Squad.” For a nickname like the Flower Children, there are a surprising amount of men. It seems the name is not reflective of the individuals themselves, but rather something else. All dressed in black and holding orchids they begin to get anxious like the rest of us. It doesn’t take long for the Virgin’s roadies to switch out RBSP’s equipment for their own. As the last roadie exits the stage the lights go out all around us. Out of the darkness, a red glow begins at the stage.

End Part 1… Tomorrow Part 2… Don’t worry… No twists this time around… I promise… ; )

Thanks for checking out my long ass story… Hope to see you all tomorrow…